Regarding the nature of Christ.....why was there a split between the OO chuch and the EO church? ....and then why the reconciliation.

EO says that Christ has two natures ...fully human and fully divine....and together in an earthly body in a joined way but that this communion does not produce a new unique nature.

OO church says that he is fully divine and fully human too...but these natures are joined together in the one person Jesus and formed a new and unique nature.....fully human and fully divine.

Firstly do I have the above correct?

Secondly.....were not these people in the Council of Chalcedon discussing something that has not been revealed clearly to man anyway. Who really knows EXACTLY what happened with Christs divinity and humanity...shouldn't this have been one of the mysteries? These OO people still believed Christ was fully divine and fully human.

So doesn't the EO church and OO church say the same exact thing except that the OO church puts an emphasis on this unity as a "new" and unique nature and the EO church does not go this far in it's ideation of unity.

I am not even remotely a theologian, but from what I understand the OO's would not be comfortable with the words "new" and "unique," if that was understood to say that Christ has something different from the nature we have and the nature which God has. I think we are more comfortable with saying He has one "united" nature, which is fully divine and fully human. We believe, like the EO's, that the union did not result in any confusion or change in the natures.

Basically, when the OO and EO theologians got together in the second half of the 20th century, they found that we really do believe the same thing and mean the same thing, only using different terminology. The problem with reunion has to do with the fact that the EO's recognize seven councils and the OO's recognize only three.

One might say, "Why don"t the OO's just accept the additional 4 councils?" or "Why don't the EO's just let go of the last four councils?" However, it is much more complicated than that. The EO's consider all seven councils to be infallible and foundational to their church, and so will not let go of any of them.

The OO's, on the other hand, will likely never accept the other four councils. This is partly because some of these councils condemn persons the OO's consider to be saints and some of the councils use terminology which in the past had been used by heretical groups. (That is basically why the OO's rejected the Council of Chalcedon in the first place and why the division took place.) There are also emotional reasons why the OO's would not want to accept these councils, as they were historically used by the EO's to justify the oppresion, torture and even slaughter of OO's. As recently as a century ago, the czar of Russia was using Chalcedon to justify repressive measures against the Armenians and, at the present time, the Georgians are using it to close down or confiscate Armenian churches.

If you want to know the history of all this and how the division came about, a good source is The Council of Chalcedon Re-Examined, by V.C. Samuel. You can get it through amazon.com.

My advice however, is not to get hung up over this issue. If you are exploring Orthodoxy with the idea of perhaps one day converting, this is a red herring which will just get you off track. Just find an Orthodox church near you and start going to services and talking to the priest. You'll learn more that way than getting involved in these aggravating internet debates.

Secondly.....were not these people in the Council of Chalcedon discussing something that has not been revealed clearly to man anyway. Who really knows EXACTLY what happened with Christs divinity and humanity...shouldn't this have been one of the mysteries?

You have touched on a very important point indeed. The unity between Christ’s humanity and divinity was indeed an ineffable mystery, which is why St Cyril of Alexandria was lead to a paradoxical type Christology in which he could affirm: a) that God was impassible according to His naked divinity on the one hand, and b) that God suffered and was crucified on the other.

The problem with the Chalcedonians was exactly the same problem with the Nestorians — they wanted to unwind this paradox, and divide Christ into two subjects for the purpose of protecting God’s impassibility. If you study the Nestorians’ historical claims against St Cyril, you will find that they are strikingly akin to the Chalcedonians claims against the Oriental Orthodox Church. In fact, I have exposed this many times on this very forum — the latest incident was when one Chalcedonian member accused the Oriental Orthodox Church of theopaschitism (a claim typical of the Nestorian response to St Cyril’s Christology) because She sings the Trisagion in a Christological context (the context in which the hymn in fact originated), whereby certain additions were then later added in the face of the perceived Nestorian/Chalcedonian threat to Orthodox Christology. We thus chant in the spirit of St Cyril the Pillar of Faith: “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, who was crucified for our sins, have mercy upon us.”

In attempting to solve a paradox, the Chalcedonians fell into a paradox themselves — for on the one hand they condemned Nestorianism, yet on the other hand they exonerated Nestorian heretics, documents, and expressions, and used Nestorian arguments against the True Orthodox Church — The Church of Alexandria and all in communion with her.

Peace.

« Last Edit: September 02, 2005, 05:45:01 AM by EkhristosAnesti »

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No longer an active member of this forum. Sincerest apologies to anyone who has taken offence to anything posted in youthful ignorance or negligence prior to my leaving this forum - October, 2012.

"Philosophy is the imitation by a man of what is better, according to what is possible" - St Severus

This appears to make the claim that to not accept Chalcedon is to have bias against Eastern Orthodoxy.Why not defend the necessity of Chalcedon rather than make strawmen against the Oriental Orthodox?

MODERATION:Matthew,Exactly how many times do you need to be warned about this?Are you pert, indifferent or simply unable to comprehend the fact that you have been consistently warned about fuelling EO vs. OO polemics in the public forums? You've been told time and time again that there is a private forum for this. What is it that you do not understand about this? WHY DO YOU PERSIST IN BREAKING FORUM RULES? I suppose negative attention is better than no attention at all in your mind.If you really want to get yourself banned, why don't you just add this sign to your signature line?:

« Last Edit: November 15, 2006, 06:58:55 AM by ozgeorge »

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If you're living a happy life as a Christian, you're doing something wrong.

Please admit me to the private forum and you will no longer have this problem.

whether or not you get "admit"-ted to the private fora, you should cease and desist all the sorts of EO-OO polemics you've been up to. George lays it out clearly in his following post what you need to do - PM the correct people and you'll get onto the private board. Don't break forum rules, regardless.

Please admit me to the private forum and you will no longer have this problem.

Firstly, it's not my problem, it's your problem if you cannot comprehend simple instruction.....Secondly, don't you DARE threaten this forum with extortion like that EVER again.Thirdly, you have been told umpteen times that you need to pm Robert, Chris or Anastasios (another simple instruction you seem to be unable to get your head around.)Not being able to comprehend simple instructions and memory loss are very bad signs

« Last Edit: November 15, 2006, 07:18:03 AM by ozgeorge »

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If you're living a happy life as a Christian, you're doing something wrong.

Fr Chris is in receipt of your request and is deliberating it, Matthew. The problem is, you don't follow the rules in the public forum, yet you want access to the no holds barred area. We are thinking about whether that is best for the board. You will have a decision shortly.

The EO Christology is that there are two physis (natures) in one hypostasis. This hypostasis is the hypostasis of the second person of the Trinity. The word enhypostatic is used to refer to the taking up of the human nature by the divine nature.

The OO Christology is essentially the Cyrillian Christology which is summed up by the phrase 'one incarnate nature of God the Word'. They do not confess that the natures combine to form a new nature. As EkhristosAnesti mentioned they have left open a paradox. Christ is at once consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with man as the henoticon of Zeno said. But He is one nature after the union without mixing or confusion. There is one nature 'out of two' that is permanently united hypostatically.

I think that they are essentially the same when it comes down to it. Each expression has its advantages and disadvantages. For example the Cyrillian/Alexandrian view has an advantage it seems when it comes to the revelation of God. Severus says that in Christ is percieved one incarnate divine nature. Whereas with Chalcedon you have the Tome of Leo which tends to seperate the properties of the individual natures so it could might be confused so that some might say that we percieve only the human nature in Christ. On the other hand the Alexandrian view has the potential problem of downplaying Christ's humanity. Severus speaks of Christ submitting to the limitations of the human nature voluntarily. This view led to the Julianist movement which concieved of Christ as impassible from the time of the incarnation.

Severus speaks of Christ submitting to the limitations of the human nature voluntarily. This view led to the Julianist movement which concieved of Christ as impassible from the time of the incarnation.

Actually, St. Severus was extremely critical of Julian and his movement.

If you or anyone else wants to take this any further, it would be best in the private forum. Lately, these issues have led to contentious discussions.

Severus speaks of Christ submitting to the limitations of the human nature voluntarily. This view led to the Julianist movement which concieved of Christ as impassible from the time of the incarnation.

Actually, St. Severus was extremely critical of Julian and his movement.

If you or anyone else wants to take this any further, it would be best in the private forum. Lately, these issues have led to contentious discussions.

I am not trying to create a fight here. I was just giving my perspective on the positives and negatives of each of the Christological perspectives.

Yes, I realize that Severus was critical of Julian but it still seems to stem from the Alexandrian view of Christology.

I have sent a message to FrChris and hope to gain access to the private forums. I saw this thread in the regular forums and figured it was fine to post in it.